Extreme Metal – Reviews, Gigs, Interviews and more

Monthly Archives: November 2014

As I didn’t find much information of this band online, other than being from Florida, I’ll go straight to the music.

The album starts with an intro of ambient synth and water running, and at the beginning of the second song we get a pretty disappointingly sloppy typical riffing and drumming, but luckily the songs turns into a more decent faster (but not fast in general) Death Metal, with old, old Black Metal influences. As we apparently get pretty much nine songs of similarly styled songs, I have a mixed opinion of the stuff.

In the world of underground Black Metal, especially in the case of bands dealing in Spiritual and Occult topics, it’s rare these days to find a band that has an original sound and approach to the Great Work, not to mention highly advanced compositions and playing skills. Thy Darkened Shade from Greece has these qualities, and after having heard their latest album, I had to ask a few questions from the main Magician of the band, Semjaza.

Now this was a gig I was looking forward too – what a package! Iceland’s Skálmöld, Russia’s Arkona and Swiss Eluveitie all bringing their distinctive folk tinged metal (maybe a bit less extreme in Eluveitie’s case) to London.

Growing up as a teenager in the early- and mid-nineties, the Norwegian Black Metal scene was definitely one of my favourite sources of atmospheric and intelligent music, with (among the more straightforward Black Metal acts) bands such as Ved Buens Ende, Arcturus, Thorns, and Dodheimsgard really breaking the boundaries of what Black Metal can be, or become.